Mr. Shirk Cannot Stand by His Own Words, Too Cowardly to Name Loonwatch

Recently, we published a devastating exposé of the typical anti-freedom hate speech being pumped out everyday at Jihadwatch. I called out Mr. Roland Shirk for suggesting that all Muslims (without exception) should be forced into “enclaves” and endure various forms of religious discrimination. In case you think I twisted his words, he ended his piece with this Islamophobic call to arms:

Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat.

Now, Mr. Shirk has responded to us (albeit indirectly) at Jihadwatch. Mr. Shirk gloats about how his writings have been picked up by various media outlets, including Loonwatch, who he refuses to name except with ad-hominem attacks (such as calling us “Islamic supremacists” or “stealth jihadists”). This follows a regular pattern of desperation at Jihadwatch, as Loonwatch has published numerous devastating rebuttals of Spencer’s hateful anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.

In this very weak response to Loonwatch, Mr. Shirk cites my offending passage:

Lately, Spencer has posted articles by the mysterious Roland Shirk, someone we know nothing about, probably because he is another one of Spencer’s pen-names (like Hugh Fitzgerald). Apparently, Mr. Shirk is a mouthpiece for JihadWatch’s more belligerent attacks on the constitutional freedoms of indigenous law-abiding Muslims.

Mr. Shirk has a problem not with my accusation that he wants to force Muslims into segregated, ghettoized communities or that he incites direct calls for violence against Muslims on the site. No, rather, Mr. Shirk is upset that I suggested he might just be another one of Spencer’s pseudonyms. His entire article ignores my central point: his “belligerent attacks on the constitutional freedoms of indigenous law-abiding Muslims.”

Mr. Shirk, I don’t care if you are Robert Spencer or not. That one line was not the point of my article. What I care about is that you write to dehumanize Muslims and deny their fundamental human rights based solely on Spencer’s deliberate self-serving distortions of Islamic religious beliefs. Only in the comments section, after someone else repeatedly called you out, do you attempt to address my point:

I never said anywhere the Muslims should be confined by the state to ghettos. I proposed that they should be politically neutralized, prevented from migrating into Europe, and prevented from using the European welfare state to breed at the expense of native residents. To do that, I proposed dismantling that state for everyone. At no point did I suggest that Muslims receive unequal treatment at the hands of the law.

This comment smacks of disingenuous insincerity. You never said anything about dismantling the welfare state for everyone. Your original piece argues clearly that MUSLIM immigration should be stopped, not all immigration. Your article decries the “demographic treason committed by Western leaders who admitted so many Muslims.” You never said anything about limiting Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, or other immigrants; only Muslims. Are you having a hard time swallowing what you wrote?

Second, no, you didn’t outright say Muslims should be confined to ghettos. You just strongly implied it by saying, “Islam is a religion of fear and force, and its adherents can only be at your feet or at your throat.” How you plan to make Muslims live “at your feet” without supporting unequal legal treatment is impossible. You want to force law-abiding people out of your country, take away their political rights, and impose austerity on them? Perhaps you do not understand that preventing lawful migration, forcing people to be “politically neutralized,” and denying welfare are three factors that form ghettoes.

Third, if you are going to write a hateful article against all Muslims, then at least stand by what you wrote instead of dishonestly pretending you were against immigration as a whole. We called you out and you have not responded meaningfully to any of our points.

Next time you want to respond to us, have the courage to address the substance of our points rather than veering off into the nether realm of obfuscation and semi-coherent apologia.

Maybe he knows it or maybe he doesn’t, but it is ironic that the term Shirk (pron. sheerk) is Arabic for partnership i.e. in Islam polytheism which is the antithesis of the Muslim faith. Maybe that might be a reason for Spencer to use it as a nom de plume.